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The Nfl Just Added Another Streaming Only Game For 2025

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the nfl just added another streaming only game for 2025

The NFL unveiled its full 2025 regular-season schedule on Wednesday night. While fans were busy circling marquee matchups, one trend stood out: This year will feature more streaming-exclusive NFL games than ever before. Building on the league’s recent digital expansion that saw Netflix take over Christmas Day games in 2024, the 2025 season brings even more platforms into the mix. That includes a Week 1 matchup streaming live on YouTube and YouTube TV, marking a first for the league. Amazon Prime Video, ESPN+, and Peacock are also back with exclusive broadcasts. With so many platforms in play, it’s easy to lose track of who’s streaming what.

In this article, I’ll break down the NFL’s streaming monster, platform by platform. You’ll see which NFL games are exclusive to streaming in 2025 and how you can watch them. Before I dive into the specifics, I wanted to give you a quick look at who’s streaming what. While other platforms like Paramount+ carry games that also air on traditional channels, these are the services with exclusive matchups in 2025. Cordless phones, cordless tools, cordless vacuums, cordless television. Broadcasting has gone wireless, cutting the cord from the traditional days of cable television.

Now, you can watch all your favorite shows and events wherever, whenever. Of course, there is something funny about trading in a 60-inch television for a six-inch smartphone screen to view countless amounts of content, but that's how the world works. As streaming services have grown in popularity, sports leagues are realizing it's time to get in line or get run over. The NFL is no different. They've hopped on the streaming bandwagon and in a big way. "Thursday Night Football" is exclusively available on Prime Video.

Peacock had a streaming-exclusive playoff game in 2023 and the Brazil game in 2024. Netflix took over the Christmas schedule, and more cord-cutting broadcasts promise to be on the way. Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, ESPN+, Peacock, and YouTube all have exclusive games in 2025. We go through every streaming matchup. The NFL made a landmark transition into streaming games when it signed an agreement in 2021 with Amazon Prime Video, which gave the platform the exclusive rights to air Thursday Night Football through 2033. Since then, streaming games have become an essential part of the NFL’s scheduling, and the league has aggressively grown its streaming footprint.

Following the 10-year Amazon deal, ESPN+ aired its first exclusive game in 2022, and Peacock broadcast its first exclusive in 2023. Next, in 2024, Netflix came on board to air Christmas Day games in 2024. And for the upcoming 2025–26 season, the NFL has added a fifth exclusive streaming partner: YouTube. Football fans, used to consistently finding games on NBC, CBS, ABC/ESPN, Fox, and NFL Network are increasingly needing streaming subscriptions to watch the action. Here’s a brief rundown of the exclusive regular-season streaming games, including the full streaming schedule: NFL carves out room for yet another streaming service in 2025.

The NFL announced this week that they were partnering with a new streaming service, adding another jewel to their crown in their quest to reach maximum numbers of people and, by extension, to make... Joining the list of services fans will need to use to watch NFL games in 2025 is YouTube, which at least is a free service (for now). YouTube and YouTube TV will exclusively stream NFL Opening Weekend’s Friday night game from Brazil in a nod to the international fan base the league is trying to reach. In order to watch every NFL game this season, you’ll need Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock, and YouTube in addition to ESPN (streaming or cable) plus YouTube TV with or NFL+ for NFL Sunday Ticket. Paramount+ (the CBS streamer) and the new Fox One streaming services will have Sunday afternoon games if you don’t have cable or an antenna. That can add up pretty quickly.

All games in a team’s home market are still over-the-air for free on local broadcast television, so as league commissioner Roger Goodell has said in the past, the majority of fans have the same... The notable exception is a team’s secondary markets in the cities closest to their home markets, which don’t broadcast over the air if the game is paywalled. Ever since the NFL made its first gargantuan broadcast deal with Fox in 1994 for $1.58 billion, the league has prioritized getting its product in front of as many fans as possible. Today, that means going beyond the usual suspects. There was a time when fans could find all of the NFL’s offerings on CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC/ESPN, and NFL Network, but now, more and more games will require streaming service subscriptions. The NFL signed its first streaming contract with Amazon Prime Video in 2021, giving the platform the exclusive broadcast rights to Thursday Night Football through 2033 for $1 billion per year.

In Year 2 of a three-year deal, Netflix has exclusive rights to a Christmas Day doubleheader. ESPN+ holds the rights to Monday Night Football, and games broadcast on ESPN/ABC will be available on ESPN+. The sports monolith also nabbed the rights to NFL Red Zone. Few forces known to humankind can put eyes on screens like the NFL does. America’s relationship with its pro football stage floats between fixation and faith. By now, ardent NFL fans know the main times to block off.

Some things have held steady across the past two decades — Sunday is the all-day affair with afternoon slots and a nightcap; Monday and Thursday have standalone games. A lot has changed, though. The decentralization of the broadcasts can get confusing, if not frustrating. In addition to the usual channel rotation, this season’s streaming rights extend to Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock and YouTube. There’s also the new ESPN-NFL blockbuster to sift through. Consider this our best effort to consolidate the schedule, review the different broadcasters and keep track of all these subscriptions.

Make sure you’re also following the NFL on The Athletic. Our Scoop City newsletter is one of the best briefings in the game. And our senior writers are basically the 1999 Rams offense of football scribes. Ensuring access to every NFL game this season begins with a basic TV provider. Here are the most popular domestic options, contingent on local availability, with pricing as of August 2025: Average monthly cost: $85-100.

Depending on the carrier, this will cover everything except for out-of-market games, “Thursday Night Football” on Prime, the Peacock exclusive and the Christmas slate on Netflix. The pivot to the streaming of NFL games includes ensuring that all NFL games will stream. As explained by Tyler Aquilina of Variety.com, via Sports Business Daily, no NFL game will be exclusively available on streaming in 2025. Which means all games will be available through streaming. And it means, per the report, that viewers within a given locale who are able to watch games that are otherwise available on “free TV” will be able to stream games without paying for... Thanks to geolocation technology, it’s easy to allow people in a certain area to have free access to the games, through their phones or smart TVs.

And while on one hand the move represents further progress in streaming, on the other hand it erodes the potency of broadcast TV. And it speaks to a future potential model, if/when the league fully pivots to streaming and cuts out the traditional networks. NFL football comes to Netflix again this December. Two matchups will stream live on Christmas Day. These games are part of a multi-year deal between Netflix and the NFL. Both are exclusive to Netflix.

You won’t find them on cable or other platforms. This year, fans will see Dallas play Washington. Later, Detroit faces Minnesota. These are key games with playoff stakes. Netflix brings full coverage, from kickoff to postgame. That includes strong announcers, pregame shows, and halftime segments.

This guide gives you the full schedule, how to stream, who’s calling the games, and what to expect on screen. All the important info is here in one place. Netflix will stream two live NFL games on Christmas Day. These are part of Week 17 in the regular season. Both games will stream in English and Spanish. You can watch from the United States and many other countries where Netflix is available.

These are the only two NFL games on Netflix this season. There's little doubt that technology has made many things in our lives easier. Watching the NFL on television isn't one of them. The most popular sport in the United States is also among the most confusing to watch, thanks to a myriad of streaming services and exclusive online broadcasts. For those who still have an old-school cable subscription, most games played by the local team can be viewed on local affiliates. Many national games will also be available, but that's not always the case.

Outside of cable, here's a short guide for options on how to watch the NFL this fall: One of the best ways to stream a lot of the NFL is by subscribing to YouTubeTV and paying for the NFL Sunday Ticket service, though it's relatively pricey at $276 for the full... That arrangement gives viewers their local stations, plus access to many out-of-market games.

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